TheTvDB v3.0 TVSheetGenerator - A program for Windows users who want to create movie sheets and thumbnails for TV Shows (Series, Seasons and Episodes).

New revision 5.4 available. Easier to use, more flexible and with several new functions and templates for Showcase mod.Compared to previous official release, 5.2, the following changes have been included in Revision 5.4:# Added MENU Option to "Manage Settings" with the ability to create, change, load and show sets of setting options for different resolutions etc# Included new templates and settings for Cylent's Showcase mod# Added possibility to automatically create a Msheet configuration file for series, season and episode level folders. This is for Msheet 2.10 and later.# (Activate this functionality by setting the config parameters that you want to use on the Menu "Manage Settings")# Added possibility to have different sheet and thumb size/resolution for series, season and episode sheets# Added menu option to generate demo folders with dummy <episode name>.avi files# Added possibility to create an overlay on series, season and episode sheets and thumbs with 'series name' / 'Season n' / 'Episode n'.# (Activate this function on the Menu "Manage Settings", "Manage other steering parameters")# Included overlay image files created by dnicks for the above overlay functionality - for seasons and for episodes and for a couple of series names. # (Ask dnicks if you need an overlay image with the name of a series that isn't included in this release - see the Templates\Images\Overlays folder).# (dnicks can be reached via personal message, PM, on www.wdtvforum.com.)# New option to skip creating sheets for "Specials" (Season 00 or 99)# It is now possible to select COVER or PREVIEW for thumbnails independently for Series and Seasons# The downloader now removes duplicate episode folders when a new episode is added with the same number as a previous one. For example when episode name has changed.# Sheet examples are now in the "Example Sheets" folder instead of in the templates folder# Statuswindow that is shown during processing of multiple series is now properly hidden after processing# Restructured the main MENU and removed options that are no longer valid/needed and moved some under "Manage Settings".# Added 1280x720 prefix to default template names to create consistency with all other template names (may mean that existing users may need to reselect templates)# Option to download new and updated sheet templates from internet (under "Generate Templates") on the Menu# Added menu option to set a naming convention for season folders and season sheets, like earlier implemented for episodes.# (on "Manage Settings", "Manage other steering parameters")

Special Thanks to Ernis who has given up a lot of his time and converted my TViXie templates to The TvDB TVSheetGenerator format, it has been a week long process with lots of design,technical collaboration and patience (me changing the design,and him having to start coding the template again Also thanks to him Beta Testing my WD-TV mod his help and assistance is very much appreciated.

The OSD Mod + Msheet + TheTvDB v3.0 TVSheetGenerator are all designed to used as a suite.

The TVSheetGenerator program was originally created by B5Fan and has been enhanced by dnicks, Ernis and Cylent. Original thread: http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=2379.0. This has now been developed into an automated sheet and thumbs generator for TV Shows, reading information from theTVDb.com and generating sheets nad thumbnails for WDTV that can be displayed by TiTis MSHEET application (or LaurentG). The best effect is when you use Cylent's OSD mods (including msheet).

The TVSheetGenerator is written in scriptcode using a freeware called Mortscript (included):

To install the TVSheetGenerator:1) first download the following rar file (revision 5.4): http://www.mediafire.com/?ym2iom3ojli2) Unrar into a folder on your local hard drive. This will create exe files, script files and a couple of subfolders.3) Read the ReadMe.txt for instructions.4) Run the TheTvDB v3.0 Menu.exe program. The first run will create an INI file with default parameters. These can be changed via the Menu option "Maqnage Settings". (INI file from earlier versions are not overwritten, it continues to be valid)5) The first menu item is where you start using the program. It allows you to start dowloading information and generating sheets for a new TV Series so that is normally the first thing you will want to do.

You will find the generated sheets and thumbs in a subfolder called "Target" (the path to the target folder can be changed from the manage settings menu).

A couple of How-To's:* To generate sheets suitable for Showcase mod: Go to "Manage Settings". Select "Load values from a stored Settings file". Choose one of the 1280x459_Showcase settings and click OK. Start downloading and/or generating your sheets on the main menu.* To generate sheets suitable for WD-TV mod: Same as above, but select one of the 1280x459_Default settings files.* To generate full screen sheets: Same as above, but select one of the 1280x720_Default settings files. This is the original default setting. This is what you get if you don't load other settings.Once you have loaded suitable settings, you can start testing other things, for example choosing another template. There are several nice templates, in addition to the default ones. See examples in the "Example Sheets" folder.

The program will take care of the rest. The sheets and images and downloaded data are stored in subfolders to the program folder, named the same as the series name. In a final step the sheets and thumbnails are copied and renamed according to msheet standards into a "target directory". By default this is a subfolder named "Target", but you can change that on the settings menu if you wish.

If you use Cylent's WD-TV OSD mod, see above for how sheets will look. If you use another OSD mod, the generated sheets will look something like this when displayed by msheet on the wdtv (apologies for the cell phone quality of the film):WDTV TV Sheets.mp4

Main credits for this program goes to B5Fan who had the idea and created the core script code. And thank you TiTi for developing the wonderful MSheet application to display movie (and TV! sheets).

Huge credits to Cylent and dnicks for their collaborative efforts in developing their mods and templates and giving creative ideas for the development of theTVSheetGenerator. Also thanks to everyone helping others in this thread!

Good work guys. I've been busy with work and haven't had time to work on my new script. I also got a Touch Pro 2 for X-mas so I've been playing with that lately. I'm glad you guys took the concept of my script and improved on it. I'm still planning on releasing my new script sometime in the new year.

Nice to hear from you B5Fan! I look forward to seeing the app - no pressure . Yes, I use Idahos OSD. I find it very light and that it works well with msheet and I generally like it. But I also use lilibabes different OSDs as well (keeping different configs on different USB sticks). With Idahos it is very simple to change the background which is one of the benefits. So right now I use the same background for the TV Sheets and for the menu system. It's a real pity Idaho decided to stop...

I agree with dnicks... all credit to you for these scripts. I hope you like the latest modifications I've done (and dnicks!) to enhance them just a bit.

dnicks, I'll see how difficult it is to incorporate the new templates into the new script. I don't think it is that difficult, but we'll see. When you added stars instead of ratings for example it looked difficult, but turned out to be quite simple Thanks for doing it, giving us more layouts to choose from!

I downloaded you latest script and followed all the directions. The INI file was created and then I ran the "A" script...selected a TV series (I.E. Modern Family) It went through it's process of downloading all the images and info but when it started the sheet generator I got an error message:

"Unable to locate the template file" and then I got "Folder does not contain folder_sheet.jpg"

@dnicks: thanks, that's useful info. I know what I need to do. Not sure I can do it today because of new years celebration.

@stepps7:I tried generating sheets for Modern Family in a "clean install" (cerated new folder, unzipped the rev2 rar and ran). It went through all steps nicely and the sheets were generated like they should be. So unfortunately I can't reproduce your problem, so I need to ask a few questions to troubleshoot.

1) Have you tried what I just did, doing this in a "clean install"?

2) The problem seems to be related to that the script can't find the template file. The "folder dow not contain.." message is just a consequence of that it couldn't find the template file and therefore didn't generate any sheets. Did you change anything in the INI file (for example name of any of the templates)? SeriesTemplateFilename=Series_01_Default.xmlSeasonTemplateFilename=Seasons_01_Default.xmlEpisodeTemplateFilename=Episodes_01_Default.xml

3) If you haven't changed anything in the INI file, could you confirm that you have a "Templates" subfolder and that the template xml files mentioned above exist in that folder.

My question is that is it possible to have different images displayed on the sheets for each season? I am finding that all seasons have the same "main" image. The description of the season changes but not the image?

In order to get different images for each season you need to take one manual step (will perhaps be automated in a later version). Here is what you can do:

1) Run the script so you get the series info and images downloaded (like you have done already)2) Manual step: Go into the folder for the series (the one that is a subfolder to where the script is). You will see a subfolder per season, named simply "Season 01", "Season 02" etc. Copy a different image file into each of the season folders and name it preview.jpg.3) Run the script again for the same series. This time it should be very quick in the download step since everything is already there. So it goes quickly into sheet generation and uses your new "preview.jpg" images for each season.

To find suitable preview.jpg images you can for example look in the folder seriesname/.TheTvDB/fanart. You don't need to worry about image size or resolution. The script will make it the right size automatically.

The same thing as described above can also be done for cover images that are converted to "folder.jpg" (the folder thumbnails displayed by wdtv). If you take different season cover images from seriesname/.TheTvDB/fanart/season and copy them to each season folder under the name "cover.jpg", this will be used to create folder.jpg and also in some of the non-default sheet templates it will be embedded in the sheet. This is another thing that I will automate soon.

@Lister of Smeg and dnicks: I have worked on the download script today (preparing to change the generator script later to support dnicks new templates). I have uploaded the new download script so you may use it already now if you wish - copying it over the old version. The rar file contains the updated downloader + changelog.txt and version.txt to show which version you are at if you use this: http://www.mediafire.com/?yocwzyj4tki

Changes: Revision 2.1 (only distributed as an updated download script)# Internal change: Separate sub routine to copy the default images (makes it easier to improve in one place in the future). # The script now copies individual fanarts as preview.jpg into each season (if enough fanart exists). # This means that each season sheet will now have a different image. The generator already has the code for this.# The script now copies individual season images as cover into each season folder. # This means that each season should now get a correct folder.jpg that shows which season it is. The generator already has the code for this.# Changed so that default images (backdrop.jpg, preview.jpg banner.jpg, cover,jpg, actor1-8.jpg) are not overwritten if they already exist.# This enables the user to make manual override. New runs of the script for the same series will not destroy manual overrides.# Increased from 4 to 8 actors. (to enable use of more actors in future templates)

I have not done any changes for banners like you did dnicks. For fanarts and banners I don't see a logic for which images actually belong to which season. For season images (covers) there seems to be a naming convention that shows season number, and I have adopted that in this version of the script.

@PeterUK: There could be different problems giving this error. Which series are you downloading? Do you get the same error for whichever series you try? (you don't need to actually have the movie files... just try with any series, for example "The Mentalist" or "Gary Unmarried" or "Modern Family" - these don't have that many seasons so don't take that long time). Do you get any error message before the "folder does not contain.." error?

@PeterUK: There could be different problems giving this error. Which series are you downloading? Do you get the same error for whichever series you try? (you don't need to actually have the movie files... just try with any series, for example "The Mentalist" or "Gary Unmarried" or "Modern Family" - these don't have that many seasons so don't take that long time). Do you get any error message before the "folder does not contain.." error?

Hi mate - yes I still get this error on a clean install using Modern Family.

No error's at all until after everything's been downloaded then I get get

@PeterUK: OK, I've tried to trace what can have happened. From the message I can see that the script has come to the final step and finds that the sheets that should have been generated by he previous step aren't there. This means that problem is likely to be in the "generator" part. I'm starting to think that since it works for some people for this series and not for others (even in a clean install) it is probably not the series and not the script itself either that is the problem.

Ah ha. Yes works like a charm. Just one note. I am running Windows 7 x64 so I installed the x64 version of MS V C++ still producing the same error. I went back and installed the x86 version too and bingo!

*** Just one small silly question: Does this only work with .MKV files or will it work with .AVI? Most of my shows are in .AVI format and didn't present the way it should. Do the files have to be named the same?

It does work with other file types than mkv, it is just that I have set .mkv as default. You can change the default to .avi in the following way: Open the "theTVDBgenerator.ini" file in a text editor. Fine the line that looks like this:

Also... the idea with the last step in the process (the "copier" step) is that the script attempts to find episode files and determine which extension to use. This works in a bit of a rigid way and for this to work fully you need to create the right circumstances (I am not a very advanced programmer...). Here is what I wrote in the readme.txt file:

# Note! Episode media files in the target folders are assumed to be named with the EPnamer program using tags "<SHOWNAME> <ID> - <EPISODENAME>".# If they are, the copier script will automatically detect the file extension and rename the sheets correctly in accordance with msheet standards.

So... If you change the line in the INI file that specifies the path to the target folder to a path where your media files are storedTargetPath=Target# TargetPath=is the high-level path name where all your media files for are stored in TV Series folders. It is used by the 'copier' script# TargetPath=Target --- Can be a name of a subfolder to the directory where the script is stored# TargetPath=C:\Videos\TV Shows --- Can be a local folder on your PC# TargetPath=\\servername\sharename\TV Shows --- Can point to a folder on a share on your network

... and name your episodes with EPNamer... Then the copier has a chance to detect the correct file extension.

By the way, you can run the copier step separately as many times as you like. Just start "Utility RunScript.exe" and select the "TheTvDB v3.0 D.Copy Files.mscr" script. It is super quick and saves time from running the whole process.